She turned to me presently, saying: 

“You get very easily alarmed, Miss Selwyn.  Are you always so impetuous in your deeds of mercy?”

“Oh, no, indeed.  I never had such cause for alarm but once before, and that was a poor widow who was utterly overcome by some good news I was bringing her.  My friends usually have sufficient nerve to endure heavy shocks,” I said, very sweetly.

Her eyes flashed, but she allowed no further sign of annoyance to escape her.  When we reached the door, she turned to me and said, very cordially: 

“I shall look for you to-morrow, according to promise.  Forgive me for having kept you so long from your escort.  I fear a scolding awaits you.  Mr. Winthrop I used to find very impatient, if kept waiting.”

I left her standing on the church steps, and turned my face homeward.  When I reached the street I found Mr. Winthrop had got some distance ahead; but he was walking slowly, and I soon overtook him.

“Is it your custom to remain chatting with your friends after the sermon?” he asked, carelessly.

“Oh, no; but a lady who sat near us fainted just as I was standing by her.”

“And, of course, as a sort of mother-general of the sorrowing, you stopped to comfort her?”

“Yes; but a few drops of water sufficed.  She knew all the time I was in danger of spoiling her bonnet.”

“I am glad she snubbed you.  You are too innocent to be matched against so perfect an actress.”

Then he changed the conversation, and Mrs. Le Grande was not mentioned again that day.  I noticed, however, that he partook very sparingly of dinner; and, in the hour or two which he usually spent on the Sabbath with us in the drawing-room, he was unusually silent.  I went to the library for a book, leaving him and Mrs. Flaxman alone, and returned just in time to interrupt, a second time, a conversation clearly not intended for my ears.

“Yes.  She was at church this morning, looking as wickedly beautiful as ever,” he was saying, as if in answer to Mrs. Flaxman’s question.

When the church bells began ringing that evening, a strong desire seized me to claim the fulfillment of his promise to accompany me to the Beech Street Church.  He may have read it in my face.

“Are you going to take me out again to-night?”

“Do you wish to go?” I asked, with girlish eagerness.

“I have told you before it is not polite to reply to a question by asking another.”

“Then I would like very much indeed to go to Mr. Lathrop’s church to-night, if you are willing.”

Mrs. Flaxman looked up from her book with amazement.

“You were never at their church before.  What will those people think?”

“There must always be a first time, and probably you are aware I am not in bondage to other people’s thoughts,” he said, with calm indifference.

“Won’t you come, too, Mrs. Flaxman?” I urged.